


What the Fuck Happened to Us?

by Santaanawinds



Series: What The Fuck [2]
Category: Bandom, fun.
Genre: Break Up, Crossdressing, F/M, Friendship, Lipstick, M/M, Other, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-18 21:46:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12396882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Santaanawinds/pseuds/Santaanawinds
Summary: Follows the events of 'I Know Just What You'd Say'.Andrew's on a mission, and so is Nate. Maybe one day he'll realise what that is.





	1. 1.

Alright. Maybe getting stoned with Andrew and getting take out to bring back to the room in Utah wasn't the greatest idea he's ever had. Well, it was up there until they get into 'serious conversation' territory and then he's spilling his guts without even thinking about the words coming out of his mouth.  
'So, like, what made you wear lipstick and stuff in the first place? Can I ask?' It's curious, not mean. Nate figures, fuck it, it's Andrew, and confesses immediately.  
'David Duchovny.'  
'The X-files guy?'  
'No, before that. He played a transvestite in Twin Peaks, this old show me and Sam were obsessed with. The first time I saw it was on re runs. Then I bought the dvds and watched it with Sam.'  
  
Actually, he'd popped a boner (excusable at 13, not so much at 23) and hugged a pillow until Sam went home, praying to whatever god was out there that he wouldn't notice and punch him in the face for being, well, whatever the fuck that made him. Punk in Arizona in the 00's was very different to indie in New York in the 10's. He thinks now though, that this was Sam he was talking about, and he’s never been violent or a bigot.  
'So why-'  
'It's David Duchovny in a dress.' Nate opens his laptop, connects to hotel Wi-Fi and shows Andrew a picture.  
'Oh, yeah, kind of oddly attractive.'  
'It suits him. I thought it might look that good on me. I don't know about that, but it sure as hell felt good.'  
'I see it.' He's not sure what exactly it is that Andrew's seeing.  
  
***  
  
It turns out that Nate wasn’t joking about ‘Operation: find Andrew a guy (or girl)’, and that fall provided ample opportunity, going between one campus concert or bar to the next. Andrew took up quite a few offers for drinks, and from time to time, a little more.  
  
Nate never gets to know them.  
  
There’s one he remembers as Not Dave. Andrew was talking about his latest acquaintance and happened to mention he was ‘no David Duchovny, but’. No one else would know what that really meant, but Nate almost chokes all the same. Will counts them into a Format cover that needs a little work, and Nate thinks he’s covered when the first note comes out alright.  
  
When he meets the guy, he starts calling him David and has to correct himself. He starts calling him ‘Not Dave’ to his face and the guy takes it as a compliment that he’s already earned a nickname with ‘Andy’s’ friends.  
‘Andy?’ Jack mouths behind the guy’s back one day. Nate shrugs, his face the very image of ‘I don’t know’. No one, in the history of human life, has ever called Andrew ‘Andy’. It’s Andrew, full stop. He catches Jack and Nate making fun of Not Dave more than once before it ends.  
  
Nate can’t say he’s sad to see that one go.  
‘He was all wrong for you anyway.’ He tells Andrew one day.  
‘You think?’  
‘Dude. He called you ‘Andy’.’ This earns him a smile and he knows it matches his.  
  


***  
  
That night, Nate takes him out in search of the next one. When the nights a wash out, and they’re trashed and ambling home (well, home,  
hotel room. What’s the difference anymore?), he asks ‘Are you sure there’s no one in there that you’d-‘  
‘I’m sure. I can’t expect to just find the perfect one at some bar in-where are we?’  
‘Dude, I don’t even know.’ They laugh as they let the cool night breeze blow them along the street, then Andrew goes back to looking kind of sad. ‘Aww, it’s ok, Andrew. You’ll find someone soon.’ Nate pats him on the shoulder.  
‘I fine, it’s not like I’m all alone or anything.’ He valued his friendships a lot.  
‘Yeah. You still have me, and **I** love you. Hey, race you to the Cash and Grab!’ He took off running towards the convenience store up the street. Andrew talked at Nate’s retreating back.  
‘I love you, too.’  
  
With luck, the cashier serving at the convenience store was some bored looking teenager who didn’t give a crap that they were plastered, and happily supplied them with more beer. They drank their way back to their hotel, at one point dipping into an alleyway when a cop car rolled slowly past. By the time they reached their rooms, Nate was far enough gone that he didn’t notice Andrew taking the rest of the six-pack they’d brought back to his room and finishing it off before passing out.  
He really liked Jimmy, but he loved Nate, and now he had neither of them. Once again, Nate had drunkenly professed his love and once again, Andrew knew that he wouldn’t mean it in the morning. Assuming he even remembered, of course.  
  


 


	2. 2.

The next one’s a girl who’s far from Mrs. Right. Sure, she’s nice, but she barely says anything at band practice and doesn’t talk to his friends at all. When Jacinta/Jamie/J-something comes back to their motel room one night in January (they’re just together for a couple shows this week), he talks to her while Andrew’s taking a shower. He’d ‘drawn the short straw’ in having to share a room with the lovebirds, so he’d joked.  
  
‘So, I guess you made it past the third date then.’  
‘Huh?’  
‘Andrew. He doesn’t bring girls home too often. You must have done something right.’ He says that like it’s hard. Andrew’s great, but since their drunken (well, Nate was drunk) chat, Nate knows his standards are pretty much through the floor; and it WAS true that Andrew didn’t bring anyone “home” too often, but that wasn’t lack of interest on his part.  
‘What does that mean?’  
‘Nothing. Just, I just don’t get the impression he’s looking for anything serious right now, is all.’ Nate tries to look sympathetic. ‘I’m only telling you this because you seem like a sweet girl. I’d hate to see another one get hurt.’ Actually, she seems like a snooze fest, but even he couldn’t say that to her face. She clearly really likes Andrew.  
‘Another one?’  
‘Third this month. Fourth. Can you count Tiffany? That was one night.’ He pretends to think hard about it. ‘Anyway, which bed do you want? I’m tired.’  
  
In the morning, she’s gone. Andrew shows him the note she left on the pillow.  
‘That’s too bad. I liked that one. Better it happen now than after you got seriously invested, right?’ Nate reads the note. It’s written on motel stationary and signed ‘J xx’. He’ll probably never know what that stands for.  
  
***  
  
Shortly after she disappears, Nate texts Andrew from his (own, for  
once) hotel room.  
‘Let’s go out. I know a place.’  
‘Where are we going?’ Nowhere special, but Nate’s nervous none the less as he texts back, skirting around the point of the night.  
‘Just a bar.’  
‘What kind of bar? What do I wear?’  
‘I’m wearing this.’ Andrew waits a good couple of minutes before the photo comes through and loads. He’s got kind of an old cell phone. Probably, he could use a new one-oh.  
  
Nate’s got a wig on and a face full of make-up. Not as obvious as before, he’s gotten better at it since the last time Andrew saw him all dressed up. He scrolls down on his tiny phone screen and sees the rest of the outfit. The top, the skirt, the heels that do good things for his legs…which apparently, he shaves. He thinks he should probably reply now.  
‘Just you and me, then?’ Nate likes the sound of that. He tells himself that it’s just because he liked having a secret with Andrew in New York City of all places. Actually, he’s pretty sure he just likes the fact that it’s not a secret with Dostman anymore.  
‘Yeah. Don’t want to go out and be on my own.’ Andrew doesn’t tell Nate that only douchebags quote their own songs, and he only mentally applauds him for having the good sense to take someone with him when he goes out like that, lest he find himself beat up or in a bad neighborhood again. He abruptly starts thinking of that scene in ‘Priscilla’ when they’re stopped in some backwards Australian town in the middle of nowhere…they’re in the middle of nowhere right now.  
‘Good idea.’  
  
It’s maybe only 2 or 3 hours later when he’s tipsy and Nate’s several sheets to the wind. They’re walking home and Nate’s slung an arm around Andrew’s shoulders, leant up to press a kiss to his cheek. At one point, he stops to take off the heels and carry them instead. He stumbles and falls into him, kissing him on the neck totally by accident.  
  
‘This is the greatest night! Isn’t it Dostman? Such a great night.’ Because drinking half a brewery doesn’t lower your inhibitions. Not that Nate has any inhibitions to lower. ‘I love you!’  
‘You’re drunk. That’s why tonight is such a great night, and that’s why you love me.’ He should know better than to reason with someone who’s drunk when he’s not exactly sober himself.  
‘No, I love you more than that.’ Nate tries to explain, slurring his words just a little and becoming more unbalanced until Andrew has to hold him around the waist to keep him up.  
  
‘More than what?’ Ok, so ‘reason’ is out of the question. But if he’s carrying Nate back to the hotel, the least he can get for his trouble is a little entertainment, and Nate when he’s drunk, is very entertaining.  
‘More than being stupid drunk and just saying stuff you don’t really mean.’ He has to stop still for a second so he can remind himself that Nate’s drunk and doesn’t mean it, even if he says he does. Nate says a lot of things when he’s drunk. None of them has ever taken Dr. Midnight seriously. There’s no reason to start now.  
  
‘You love me more than being drunk? Aww, that’s sweet man. Really sweet. I love you too.’ Andrew kids, earning a Look and a middle finger from a quite un co-ordinated singer. He grabs the arm connected to that finger and throws it back over his shoulder to make it a little easier to half carry/half drag him. It is not at all helped when he almost loses an eardrum to ‘Carry me home karaoke’-Nate’s apparently reached the perfect blood alcohol level for his famous Shania Twain impression.  
  
Andrew’s very grateful when they reach Nate’s room and he can dump him on the bed and turn him onto his side, wig askew and heels still on, on the off-chance he pukes in his sleep.  
  
This thing, wherein Andrew gets dumped, Nate takes him out to find someone, drunkenly professes his love and then can’t remember it in the morning, it’s becoming a pattern.  
  


 


	3. 3.

There’s an exception to every rule, and in the case of him not knowing the names of Andrew’s dates, the exception comes in the form of Michelle, who according to Nate, might as well have horns and a red, pointy tail.  
‘She’s not that bad.’ Nattie insisted, with a bemused smile at something going on behind Nate. ‘She’s just not his usual type.’ Nate turns around and sees her hanging off of Andrew like lights on a Christmas tree. He’s giving her a piggy back into the room. They’ve just been for coffee, she has a cup tray in one hand and a bag in the other. It’s a wonder Andrew’s not drenched.  
‘I don’t like her.’ Nattie snorts and shakes his head at Nate, returning to tuning his bass. He mutters out something that sounds suspiciously like ‘you never do’.  
  
He can’t understand why Andrew chose her to see out the winter with in their shitty, freezing van with the cracked back window that ought to have shattered about a 1000 miles ago and had started shuddering violently in the last couple days. Now that Nate thinks about it, Shaky Death Trap was probably on her last legs.  
  
‘Seriously invested’ was about where Andrew was at by the springtime. He called her ‘my girlfriend’ and she was always at band practice, clogging the place up with her cancerous cigarette smoke. Nate throws away his packet and tries to quit. He’s beginning to see that she’s serious about Andrew and wonders when she’ll show her true colors. He’s grateful when the opportunity to help her out appears in April.  
  
Andrew’s gone out on a lunch run, the B-team’s huddled in a corner, speaking in hushed tones about something, Nate’s not sure, and he’s hunched over a notebook pretending to write and not to notice the way Michelle is cracking onto Jack in his corner, right in front of her boyfriend’s band. He can’t believe this chick.  
  
Getting up under the guise of troubleshooting his equipment (if asked he’d complain about a bogus problem with feedback), Nate fiddles with the sound deck that his mic is attached to, and finds the cord that’s clearly marked ‘Jack’. They’ve been playing with the configurations, so he’s been unplugged for an hour, but it’s not hard to plug him back in and turn it up so loud half the building can hear her come onto him.  
  
Andrew walks back in then, looking hurt and betrayed and he takes her out into the hallway and breaks up with her there and then.  
‘If she’s trying to screw your friends, you don’t need her, man.’  
Andrew looks a little sad when he agrees. ‘Yeah.’  
There’s no need to point out that Jack never would have gone there.  
  
***  
  
That night, Nate suggests they go out again. Andrew tells him he doesn’t want to get back on the horse right now.  
‘What horse? I’m talking about going to get drunk.’ There’s a little-known gay club around here that might be safer than anywhere they’ve been going lately. He can dress up-it’s been a while. He’s feeling the itch just under his skin.  
  
For once, Nate gets really, truly blackout drunk and can’t actually remember anything after the third round of shots. He wakes up with a swollen ankle and texts a picture to Andrew with a ‘?’. Andrew calls, similarly hung over, but not having gotten quite as smashed as Nate.  
‘I think you nearly broke it in those heels. Rolled it or something. You want coffee?’ He’s standing in line at a star bucks.  
‘Sure. What did we actually do? After the Sambucca, it’s pretty much all blank.’ Andrew smiles and the lie falls off his tongue.  
‘Don’t ask me man, I was as drunk as you.’  
  
He’s not going to explain that he was practically still sober when Nate leaned over and kissed him, on the mouth, like he maybe might have actually meant it, and Andrew didn’t stop him. Hey, almost sober and actually sober were two very different things. Andrew can’t help it if he’s still desperately in love with the one person he’ll never have. Besides, it was just a kiss. Slightly sticky between the booze and the lipstick, a little messy because Nate was drunk, but still only a kiss. It would never happen again, but it was nice to imagine for a moment, to know what that felt like.  
  
‘Oh, I was hoping you could tell me. All I remember is the drinking part of getting drunk.’ Andrews throat hurts, and he thinks back just long enough to remember.  
‘I think we were singing.’  
‘Oh, ok. That sounds like something I’d do drunk.’ The line moves, and Andrew with it.  
‘Dude, it’s in your job description. You do that sober.’  
‘Oh, yeah. For a second, I forgot we’re supposed to be working.’  
He orders their drinks, hands over the cash, trying not to be rude to the cashier.  
‘Shows not ‘til three.’  
‘It’s only ten.’  
‘See? No sweat. Maybe text the others, they might be able to tell us what we did.’  
‘They weren’t there.’ Andrew collects his drinks and walks out.  
‘No, but you kept taking photos and texting someone.’ Nate hangs up and checks his messages. Regular old drunk texts to Rachel, no pictures though (luckily). She replied ‘What the hell? Nate, text me when you’re sober.’  
  
He checks the gallery and were they ever wasted. He’s not even sure how most of these images got there.  
There’s video and pictures of him being a little too flirty with Andrew (think sexy dancing and a leg thrown over his hip),  
-A picture of him throwing his bra at someone (dammit, that was expensive),  
-One of him on the stage in the back of the club, singing with the drag queen who was performing (video, too, of him being pulled onstage), and, worse yet,  
-A series of pictures of him hanging off of Andrew-absolutely trashed and planting one on him, Andrew holding Nate’s hand where he’d laid it against Andrew’s chest and not actually looking all that bothered about it.  
Wow, he’s an asshole.  
  
He selects a couple, carefully. The bra throwing picture, the drag queen video, and one of the pictures of his arm around Andrew, leaning in in a way that only suggests a drunk peck on the cheek. He sends them to Andrew with a text ‘Crap, we really were drunk.’ Andrew texts back ‘No kidding. You ever find your bra?’ He looks down his shirt. ‘No.’  
  
There’s a moment in which Nate remembers what it felt like to kiss Andrew. The sensation, anyway. He swears the tugging in his heart and the butterflies in his stomach have more to do with him feeling bad for doing that to his friend ( _Andrew, who loves you, who’s trying to get over you)_ than anything else. He’s suddenly glad he can’t remember a word he said last night, and he’s even more happy when Andrew doesn’t tell him.  
  
  


 


	4. 4.

  
By early May, there’s a new one. Andrew’s gotten back on the horse, and now instead of Michelle, it’s Matt/Marc who’s coming to practice. Nate’s again given up on learning their names. Whoever this guy is, he won’t be sticking around. They never do.  
  
There’s an unexpected plateau in the writing of their next album by then. There’s this song that Nate’s written, and it’s called ‘All Alright’, but it won’t be alright if they don’t do something with it, now. They don’t have time to start again, the demos are due soon (and he still has to hunt down the guy they want to produce it and convince him that a no-name act is the right sort of project to put his name to, but that’s semantics).  
  
Andrew busts into practice late one day. Like, hours late, and Matt/Marc is trailing behind him.  
‘Where have you been? We haven’t had keys or a flugelhorn all day.’ Nate complains. Well, it IS twenty past one already.  
‘I’ve fixed the problem with that song. ‘Parallel lines’ or whatever it’s called.’  
‘All Alright.’ Everyone choruses. They’ve changed the name of that song so many times, and Nate’s always telling them to use the latest one.  
‘Yeah, yeah, just listen. I’ve fixed the verse and the chorus.’ Andrew sits some sheets up on his keyboard and drops into the seat. He sets a background beat and starts playing.  
  
‘Well, I got the call as soon as the day hit night…’ It’s up tempo and a different key from the sad piano ballad Nate had imagined, but he had to admit it was better for the new sound they wanted.  
‘I was thinking with some vocal effects on it, it could work as a hip-hop kind of track?’ Nate nodded his agreement.  
‘Then, the chorus…’ Andrew led in, before pausing. ‘Hey, guys, sing along for a sec, like it’s the hook of ‘piano man’.’ It was a strange directive, but it made sense once they did it. Well, after Nattie and Emily and Will joined in. ‘Yeah it’s all alright, I guess it’s all alright, I got nothing left inside of my chest but it’s all alright…’  
  
‘But with a children’s choir.’ Nate amends.  
‘Yeah, that’s perfect. It’s a good juxtaposition to the back beat, like that Eminem song with the kids in the chorus.’ He was talking about ‘Toy Soldiers’ but that wasn’t relevant, so Nate asked what else Andrew had up his sleeve. He liked the direction this was going.  
‘Well, I had this thing for the bridge…’ He didn’t want to completely flip everything Nate had written and rewritten so many times, but. ‘Stronger vocals. Make it a focus instead of an afterthought.’ He’d have said ‘sing it like your heart’s being broken’ but that’s the point of the lyrics anyway. Nate looks to Jack. They haven’t exactly been asking his input in the last five minutes.  
‘Yeah, sounds good to me. We’ll give it a run through?’  
  
It’s perfect. He could kiss Andrew. He dives for one of the tray of coffees Matt/Marc brought with him and stands next to him in the corner by the door, watching Andrew in his own world, playing it through and practicing a softer version of the bridge by himself.  
‘Great at this, isn’t he?’ Matt/Marc gushes.  
‘Yeah, he is,’ Nate says absently, going over to stand behind Andrew with his hands on his shoulders to harmonize during the final chorus. ‘Nice,’ he says, kissing Andrew on the head like he’s always done, eliciting a smile from him, ‘good job Dost.’ He ruffles Andrew’s hair and feels a sense of satisfaction when Andrew leaning into the touch has the desired effect of Matt/Marc glaring jealously at the two of them. Nate can’t resist walking over with a smile on his face.  
‘Relax, man. He’s all yours. We’re just friends.’ Matt/Marc tried very hard to look like he believed him.  
‘Right.’  
  
***  
  
That didn’t feel like the end of things as he knew them, but not three days later, Andrew was bemoaning relationship problems at rehearsal.  
‘I think it’s over. We had a huge fight.’ Nate wasn’t sorry to hear that. That was becoming a pattern.  
‘That sucks. What about?’  
‘You.’ He tries to cover up the fact that he’s happy things with the jealous jerk aren’t working out.  
‘About me? What?’ Andrew’s face said ‘not buying it’ and he grabbed Nate by the wrist and dragged him over to the corner where they wouldn’t be overheard. They drop their voices to a whisper anyway.  
  
‘What’s your problem, Nate? You tell me to go out and find someone, then you sabotage them all!’  
‘I don’t sabotage them-‘  
‘You do. Jess? Or Michelle, that stunt with the microphone? Or Jimmy?’  
‘Jimmy?’ _The fuck’s that?_  
‘The one you kept calling ‘Dave’ until you started calling him “Not-Dave”?’ _Oh, right, him._ ‘And Michael?’  
‘That’s his name? I thought it was Matt or Marc or something.’ Nate spoke casually, and it pissed Andrew off.  
‘You don’t even remember their names!’  
‘I never learn ‘em. They aren’t around that long. He’s a jealous prick, anyway.’  
‘Because of you!’ His voice climbs and he’s just loud enough that Nattie and Will look up from their crossword.  
‘Because-‘ Nate cuts himself off. He doesn’t want to finish that sentence.  
  
‘Because why? I’m trying to find someone else to fall in love with, Nate. Why do you always have to find something wrong with them?’  
‘Because there is something wrong with them!’ He can’t say it plainer than that. Or louder apparently, now that he’s gathered Jack’s attention, too. It occurs to them that they’ve long since stopped whispering. Or it would, if they cared.  
‘Really?’ Andrew cocks an eyebrow. It’s a challenge. He’s not supposed to answer. Still…  
‘That Jamie, Jacinta-‘  
‘Jess’  
‘-ran away at the first word from someone else, Michelle’s a cheating whore, and I don’t even know what Not Dave’s problem is but he called you “Andy” and you said yourself he wasn’t right for you!’ Well it probably hadn’t helped that he and Jack hadn’t gone too far out of their way to hide their dislike of the man. Andrew looked smug.  
‘Admit it. There’s nothing wrong with him!’  
‘Yes there is!’  
‘What?!’  
‘He isn’t me!’ Emily, restringing her guitar with ear buds in, looks up sharply and removes them.  
‘What?’ Her question goes unanswered.  
  
Andrew’s face becomes the picture of shock and Nate realizes he’s said it. He’s opened his mouth and let Andrew hear what he’s been feeling for months. The more time he spent being Andrew’s wingman and talking up his better qualities to the people he was seeing, the fewer people he wanted him to see. He didn’t understand why he didn’t like any of them, until now. It feels good to finally put some words to it, but only for a second. Andrew opens his mouth to speak, but he cuts him off, not wanting to hear it.  
‘Don’t. Just don’t, okay? You’re not interested anymore, I get that. But now it’s me that has to live with it, so could you please just not say anything?’ He didn’t wait for answer before walking out. Andrew followed and the others all looked at each other and shrugged, as if to ask ‘what the hell just happened here?’

 

 


	5. 5

__

‘No.’ Nate’s halfway out of the building by the time Andrew catches up with him.   
‘What?’  
‘No. I’m not gonna not say anything.’  
‘Talk all you want, I don’t have to listen.’ Now Nate’s the one being a jerk, but he doesn’t care. He’s just now realized he’s in love with his best friend and that sucks big ones for him because he’s been helping the guy get over him.   
‘Please.’ That’s the second time he’s pleaded for anything as long as Nate’s known him. It’s enough to get him to turn back, stand inside the door and wait. ‘Why me, why now?’ It’s a loaded question, and Nate’s not sure Andrew knows that. He sighs.   
  
‘Do you remember the night Rachel found me all dressed up in her clothes?’   
‘Of course.’   
‘I wanted to think I’d have gone anywhere else but to you that night, but I didn’t, and I didn’t know why that bothered me. Then Jack got pissed off that you knew stuff he didn’t and it felt like he was saying something, and there wasn’t anything to say something about.’   
‘Not at all.’ Why was Andrew agreeing with him?  
  
‘And then that pissed me off because of course there was something to say something about.’  
‘There was?’  
‘What you said when I turned up at your place in a face full of makeup.’   
‘“Are you okay?”’  
‘No, you said “That’s it?” as if it was normal to have a guy in a bra bawling his eyes out on your shoulder. Like it was no big deal.’ Nate drops his voice as a random neighbor from the building walks past and gives them a strange look.   
  
‘It wasn’t a big deal. It was you.’ The voice in his head was screaming at Andrew to Stop. Talking. ‘You looked... Like the night at the pub I had to come pick you up. You were wearing that lipstick, the same one I put on you that one time.’ He doesn’t say that it made his chest hurt and he couldn’t breathe properly.   
‘I had a black eye and a split lip.’   
‘Beautiful.’ He chokes out. That was the word he was searching for.   
‘What? No, it’s not beautiful, it’s weird, it’s weird and fucked up.’  
‘It’s not. When we’re alone and you’re dressed up like that and you don’t give a shit, you’re beautiful.’ His phone rings. He ignores it. ‘You’re beautiful, and it makes me love you more than I should. I already love you too much.’ His phone keeps ringing and Nate asks if he’s going to answer it. Andrew’s ripping his heart out to the tune of his ringtone and presenting it on a platter, and all Nate can say is ‘aren’t you going to pick that up?’ He figures he probably should, then.   
‘It’s Mike. I’ll be right back.’ Nate nods but walks back in to practice.   
  
When he returns, he lets Nate know he’s ended things.   
‘I told him it wasn’t working out.’   
  
Emily sighs inwardly, annoyed, and hands Nattie a note. She thinks she’s being subtle until Andrew catches sight of him tucking it into a pocket.   
‘Wait, you guys had a bet?’   
‘We’ve sort of had of a pool going. All in good fun, of course.’ Jack’s not making him feel better. Nate rolls his eyes and goes out to smoke. He started again about two seconds after he quit.   
‘On my relationships?’ Wait. Was Nate’s interference NOT out of love, but from wanting to win some game?  
‘Not exactly. It started as a joke, and then it just sort of kept going.’ Nattie confesses.   
‘I was betting for you this whole time. I really thought Michael would last longer…maybe I should have reevaluated after he eviscerated Jess and Michelle.’ Jack said with a thought to all the money he’d lost.   
‘It’s been going on that long? Wait, you’ve been betting on Nate?’  
‘Well, yeah. Once he started making an effort to get rid of Jimmy, we just figured it might be interesting to put a little wager on it. In hindsight, we’re assholes. I’m sorry.’ Emily hugged him. He hugged back.   
‘You are. But you might as well tell me what the bets were.’  
  
In the next few minutes, he learns there were bets on how long Jimmy and Jess would last, and then they’d opened up to include the method of execution. No-one had expected the microphone stunt, but there had been a winner on the amount of time Michelle would last. Michael however, had two winners. Nattie, who’d won on length of time (under a month after first meeting Nate); and Emily, who’d bet on technique (Nate getting jealous and bitchy and starting a fight). Then Nate himself walked in.   
‘You guys have to tell him, not me.’  
‘Tell me what?’  
Everyone looked around and no-one was game enough to tell him. Finally, Andrew did, despite his earlier protest.  
  
‘Apparently, they knew before I did. They’ve been betting on how long it takes you to get rid of my partners. Someone could have clued me in.’ They all shrink a little at that. It’s a fair comment, but now they feel like jerks.   
‘You guys knew I was in love with him? Why didn’t anyone tell me?’ Nate looks as surprised as Andrew felt and continues to be.   
‘There’s not enough time in the world to tell you all the shit you don’t know. You’re not very in touch with yourself.’ Jack reasons.   
‘You’ve never seen ‘Mean Girls’?’ Nattie quipped. Nate tilted his head, confused.   
‘You went all ‘we have to get Aaron to find Regina hooking up with Shane Olmen in the projection room above the auditorium’. We figured you were jealous.’ Emily says.   
‘Well, yeah, but I didn’t KNOW. Someone couldn’t have pointed that out? Is it that hard to say ‘you’re in love with him’?’   
‘It’s the Nate effect. Everything you’re involved in is a hundred times more complicated than it needs to be. So, sure, we could have told you, but what would that have achieved?’ Will made a pretty good point.   
  
‘Well, for one, it would have expedited the process.’ Nate replied, crossing the five or six feet of space between he and Andrew and kissing him firmly on the lips. No mistaking his intent, now that he knew what it was.   
‘And?’ Andrew prompts when he can finally speak.   
‘And I wouldn’t have spent the last 8 months terrorizing your partners and ruining your life?’ He says it like a question, like maybe he’s not sure if he’d still be that special kind of asshole that went out of his way to make Andrew miserable so he could be there to pick up the pieces. ‘I’m sorry.’ Andrew kisses him back.   
‘I think that means you’re forgiven.’ Will says, earning them all flipped birds from Nate and Andrew, still mid kiss. 

 

 

 


End file.
